While a new report suggests phones listen to owners for targeted advertising, a tech expert said smartphones aren’t “eavesdropping”. 

An American report published this week claims Cox Media Group uses something called “active listening”, allowing advertisers to use a phone’s microphone to listen to users and generate targeted advertising. 

Irish Independent Tech Editor Adrian Weckler explained the report implied a phone passively listens to and tracks the noises around it. 

“The problem is that your phones actually do listen to you if you want to technically define listening to you as for example your voice assistant,” he told Newstalk Breakfast. 

“If you take an iPhone for example and you go into your settings and your privacy settings and your microphone, you will see all of the apps that you have allowed your microphone to use and there are dozens of them.” 

The real question is whether any of those apps and any of the services that work with those apps use the microphone in a “passive” way to “eavesdrop” on users. 

“The answer to that question is no,” Mr Weckler said. 

A woman waking up and checking her phone, 28-10-16. Image: Andrea De Martin / Alamy

“The only function of your iPhone or your Android phone that is allowed to listen and wait and sort of wait for a specific word to be used to take action is the voice assistants.” 

People have argued that ads appear on their phones for products they had previously been talking about – a hint the phone had been listening. 

Mr Weckler said, however, said we use “hundreds of thousands of words every day”. 

“The only time one of them comes up in an ad is about once every three or four months,” he said. 

“It's a sheer and pure coincidence.” 

Nosy phones?

Mr Weckler said targeted advertising is often about who you live with and what social media they use. 

“Your tech ecosystem will know who your spouse is, who your kids are,” he said. 

“They know when their birthdays are, they know whether there are big occasions coming up. 

“I know there are lots of people who genuinely believe [their phone is listening to them]. 

“That conspiracy would have to be literally the largest conspiracy we've ever seen. 

“It would have to take into account Apple, Google, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and so many advertising companies that it's almost unfeasible.” 

The chances of none of those companies eventually having a whistleblower are too low for the theory to have any ground. 

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